1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to multimedia networks, systems and methods of operation. More particularly, the invention relates to systems and methods for enriching non-linkable media representations in a network by enabling an overlying hotlink canvas.
2. Description of Prior Art
In recent years, there has been a sizeable growth in the use of rich media over the World Wide Web as more and more individuals and institutions are beginning to realize the web's potential in a broad range of applications including electronic commerce, education training, news, etc. Examples of rich media include animation, audio, 3-D, panoramas, and videos. There H are two apparent clusters of rich media technology. One at the low end and the other at the high end which hampers effective deployment of some rich media in Internet based applications. The “low end” cluster comprises static images and simple non-interactive animations (typically animated GIs) which are easy to deploy and therefore have widespread usage. The “high end” clusters comprises richer and more natural experiences with larger interactivities, such as panoramas, 3-D, streaming audio/video, and composite media (e.g., MPEG-4), but the difficulty of deployment has limited widespread usage. A novel scaleable architecture called Hot Media bridges the gap between the two clusters thereby achieving widespread web penetration. A key feature of the technology is a suitable delivery file format that can contain heterogeneous compositions of media bit streams as well as meta data that defines behavior, composition and interaction semantics. The delivery file format enables the creation of lightweight single file representation of interactive, multistage presentations resulting in multiple media type contents. At the core of Hot Media client is a smart content algorithm that infers media types from the incoming data stream and fetches the media renderer components, user-interface components and hyper-linked action components, all just in time, resulting in progressive and context driven enrichment of the user experience. Further details related to Hot Media architecture are described in Ser. No. 09/376,102 entitled “Framework For Progressive Hierarchical and Adaptive Delivery Rich Media Presentation and Associated Meta Data”, filed Aug. 17, 1999 (SE9-98-033), supra.
Often instances of rich media incorporate links to other presentations to expand a user experience. The process of clicking on a link in a media for transfer to the other presentation is referred to as “hot linking ” or “hyper linking” is further described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,841,978 entitled “Networking Using Steganographically Embedded Data Objects” issued Nov. 24, 1998 and U.S. Pat. No. 5,918,012 entitled “Hyper Linking Time Based Data” issued Jan. 29, 1999. Sometimes times rich media are non-linkable to other presentations. It would be desirable to have non-linkable rich media supplemented to provide hot linking to other presentations. Alternatively, it would be desirable to de-couple hotlinking from media.
Typically, hot links have been tightly integrated into supported media. For example, NetShow available from Microsoft supports hot links in the temporal domain. All hot links are written to its AFS file format along with the media. RealNetwork G2 uses Synchronized Multimedia Integration Language (SMIL)for a composition of temporal hot links. Neither RealNetworks nor NetShow support hot links other than in the temporal domain. Veon's AX integration with RealNetwork G2 provides both spatial and temporal hot links and uses SMEL as output format. None of the above-mentioned supported media provide a generic plug and play framework for non-linkable media to become hyper linkable. Nor does such hot link support media provide, in real-time, a separate hot link meta data comprised in advance and delivered as a transparent panel or hot link canvas for implementation of hot linking in otherwise non-linkable media.